School of Chemical & Life Sciences

Thrust areas of research in the School are environment and health. The research objective is to understand the etiology of diseases at molecular level and inter-relationship between nutrients and drugs. Modern bio-medical research tools and developments in the fields of Genetic Engineering, Genomics, Proteomics and Bioinformatics are being used to understand the cellular processes associated with health and diseases. The emerging concept of role of elements in health, effect of chemicals on environment, health and ecosystem including mitigation of their toxicity and carcinogenicity are other areas of research. Scientific evaluation of the efficacy of herbal medicine is being extensively pursued. The effect of environment on growth, structure and chemistry of plants, relationship between structure and function of proteins and enzymes, development of bio-molecules by r-DNA technology, regulation of gene expression, development of new generation vaccines and diagnostic probes, enhancement of secondary metabolites in medicinal plants, metabolomics, molecular biology of diseases, biotransformation of medicinal plants for better yield of medicinal compounds and transgenics of valuable crops and medicinal plants are also being studied. Besides the departments, the School has the following facilities:

The thrust areas of research in the school are health, environment and plant biotechnology. The school members are involved in research with an objective to understand the etiology of diseases at molecular level and inter-relationship between nutrients and drugs. Modern bio-medical research tools and developments in the fields of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Genetic Engineering, Genomics, Proteomics and Bioinformatics are being used to understand the cellular processes associated with health and diseases.

Attempts are also being made to elucidate the role of natural products and micronutrients in health and diseases. ­Study of effect of environmental chemicals on health and ecosystem and mitigation of their toxicity and carcinogenicity are other areas of research in the school. Scientific evaluation of the efficacy of herbal medicine is being extensively pursued. Other areas of research include the effect of environment on growth, development, structure and chemistry of plants, relationship between structure and function of proteins and enzymes, development of biomolecules by rDNA technology, regulation of gene expression, development of new generation vaccines and diagnostic probes, biotransformation and enhancement of secondary metabolites in medicinal plants, molecular biology of infectious diseases, and transgenic of vegetable, floriculture and oil crops.

All the departments of the school are well equipped with necessary research infrastructure. An independent Animal House is attached with the school, and caters to the needs of the university. The school has a well-stocked book library, and a large number of journals are available online and/or in print format.

Jamia Hamdard has a well maintained herbal garden within the campus spread over six acres of land where about 150 species of important traditional medicinal and aromatic plants including herbs, shrubs and trees are flourishing. The main purpose of the garden is to facilitate the experimental work and for ex-situ conservation of rare medicinal plants.

Centre for Transgenic Plant Development

The school has established a Center for transgenic plant development, an adjunct facility within the department of Biotechnology with state of the art facilities.

The center is equipped with infrastructure to train students and to carry out research in various disciplines of plant and microbial biotechnology. The major R & D activities pursued includes: cloning and characterization of novel genes linked with tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses and quality traits of medicinal and crop plants; authentication and standardization of crude components of herbal formulations; and nano-vehicle assisted gene delivery and expression in medicinal and crop plants.

The thrust areas of center also include improving the quality of medicinal crops through engineering of metabolic pathway; in-vivo and in-vitro conservation of medicinal plants; proteomics of host pathogen interaction. Development of easy, rapid, sensitive, cost effective method for aflatoxigenic mold detection in the groundnut kernels and soil; and identification and quantification of aflatoxins in the food and feed. The center has received R & D grants from various government agencies such as DST, DBT, Department of AYUSH, CCRUM, CSIR, ICMR, UGC, DRDO etc.

Central Animal House Facility

The Central Animal House Facility at Jamia Hamdard is a state-of-the-art facility for experiments on animals, and breeding of non-primates. This facility is approved by the CPCSEA, Ministry of Environment and Forests, and caters to the requirement of experimental animals for the various Faculties of Jamia Hamdard including the Medical College. Animal house at Jamia Hamdard is equipped with micro-ventilation cage system (MVCS) for rats and mice with facility of air shower and cage changing station, HVAC, motorized Olympus microscope, fully automatic histopathology facility, thermo hygrometer and lux meter, besides a double door autoclave, water purification system, deep freezer, and an operation room with surgical table for animals. The animal house facility of Jamia Hamdard is one of the most modern facilities available in a University.